I have a few hours on theese now and they are great for the price (58$ including shipping from the other side of the world) but they arent perfect (i wasnt expecting that either).
I have the RE-01 already, and they are great except they are lacking bass. Mid and high is fine but they are lacking bass. Now the CKM500 isnt far off from the ER-01 in highs, but they are complete opposite when it comes to bass and lower mid. The CKM500 is too much, well, i can handle abit much bass (Like my DT770 80ohm) but the main problem with the CKM500 is that it affects lower mid too, so they are quite colored by that.
The ER-01 also have a wider soundstage, not something i focus alot on tho, but its easy to hear the difference when i go straight from one to the other.
So are they better or worse than ER-01? Well, abit hard to judge because of how different they are in bass/lower mid but i think i rather say they are fairly equal but different.
So wich will i continue to use? Well, i think im going with the CKM500 for now. The CKM500 are easier in use. I just put them in my ears and they stay there becasue of the shape. Its much more fiddeling with the ER-01 to get them where they sound best, and when moving around i need to adjust the ER-01 occasionally. I dont think i have to do that with the CKM500 (tho i havent moved that much around with them yet.
Since the ER-01 sits deeper in the ears they isolate better than the CKM500, so thats a plus to the ER-01.
Im curently looking for a 10band(or more) EQ for my phone so i can try and tame that lower mid abit, 5 band (60hz and 230hz) didnt quite cut it.
Oh yeah, microphonics... even tho the cables are pointing down i just loop them up and around the ears anyways, that and the shirt clip from my ER-01 seemes to work great.
I also tried a few other tips i had close by. Smallest and second smalles stock tips didnt seal for me, the second biggest ones fit the best. The biggest ones sound like if i push the mediums abit further in my ears, wich makes the bass/lower mid even more pronounced so that wasnt good. I also tried the ones wich came with the Galaxy S3 IEMs, but none of them was any better.
The closest ones to the stock second biggest tips was the ones from my ER-01. The are slightly smaller and shorter but have a bigger opening. The judge is still out on them tho, i think i have to carry both with me for a while to figure out wich i prefer.
Overall i quite like them, and for the price i think they are great. Biggest issue is the lower mid/upper bass, if that was tamed abit they would be awesome. So next time im looking for new IEMs i would like something inbetween the ER-01 and CKM500